Spreading the Good

One aspect of our Free Farm is that it is home to a number of pollinators including hummingbirds, butterflies, native bees, and our honeybees.  They come around to check out the plants we are growing to attract them and they do their thing of moving pollen around and spreading it from male to female flower.

We need the pollinators. They pollinate we eat.

The other pollinators we have are the human type that drop in our farm either to visit or to lend a hand. They bring stories to share of places they have been or where they have worked or played. I am always amazed how each week someone new arrives, an not just a someone, usually a beautiful someone, a someone with something inspiring to share, if not just themselves.  I have trouble keeping up with all the names of our visitors, but I love them all and the riches they bring to the Free Farm.

Like all pollinators we need the human type too to help us grow our spiritual food and community. It is so sweet for us all to inspire each other. 

our raspberries are coming in

One week it was like international day with visitors from Quebec, Italy, India, England, Virginia, and a few other places I can't remember. Last week a woman and her daughter came by, the mother visiting from Puerto Rico. Of course, often the conversation turns to plants and food and the mother and daughter shared some exotic  fruit they like to eat from Puerto Rico. It is called Quenepa (Melicoccus bijugatus)and it is sort of like a lychee fruit, only it seems to have less flesh and a bigger seed. You have to suck the fruit more than eat it.

 

our last blessing circle at lunch included new visitors/farmer/beekeeper/family from Half Moon Bay and Jeanette from Peru who came to us via Pancho his the meditation Friday evenings

The Free Farm has been so off the hook with green beans, tomatoes, summer squash, strawberries, basil, and kale.  The peak  of all those foods has been reached as we move into fall. John from Alemany Farm has heroically taken on the greenhouse and seedling production, but just keeping the beds full with the next crop of plants has been a bit of a challenge.

I wrote about the Human Be in coming up in September over at our our blog for the Free Farm Stand, http://freefarmstand.org/.

I wrote:"Pancho and I are doing  a skill share  starting at 3pm on Friday at HANC  recycling center and Kezar Gardens ” (at 2:300pm sitting in receptive silence…bring a cushion for your tush) called Creating Community Through Serving: Living without Conventional Currency; and Disobeying with Great Love. This will touch on how to start a sustainable Free Project and Doing things Free plus insights into Living with Little or no money plus…" Also I mentioned this article in the Chronicle that talks about the loss of  Urban Farms in the city, and the Free Farm is on the list of farms to possibly go bye bye. http://www.sfbg.com/2012/08/21/farmville-real.

Instead of worrying about eviction which may take 2-3 years, we have a lot of farming work to do, so we continue to plant and grow soil. Please join us to share this wonderful opportunity to be of service in such a fun way. We continue to need people  who want to learn farming and who can eventually take lead workdays. also, since we provide a vegan lunch for the volunteers, we can use more regular cooks.

Labor of Love

I have been giving a lot of tours recently and talking a lot about this and that about our Free Farm.  Thinking about the farm now, the thing that stands out in my mind   is that we have such an excellent bunch of volunteers and that they are the ones that somehow make our farm work so well. So this is a shout out and thank you to all the many people who show up and help out in some way.

One of our wonderful volunteers who was around for too short a time, Pam O'Dea, who often gave wonderful massages to our volunteers and others, has been keeping in touch through email. She had to leave town as I understand it because the high rents here pushed here out. Now she is on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. Inspired by her work on the Free Farm she took up planting a vegetable garden and she just wrote me that her first harvest is in.

I also want to say that we have so many talented Free Farmers, like our bee keeper Pam, who with some other Free Farmers, printed a beautiful handout on handmade paper for OutsideLands (see previous blog post), plus making oragami pots for the event also. Then there is K who often leads us in singing at our volunteer lunch (I loved the "Thanks" chant last week). She also is an amazing pianist who played at our volunteer appreciation night and here is a heads up for a free recital she is playing soon:

"I will play classical music (Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, etc.) and improvise on some of my original compositions.

My students:will play more traditional, classical, and jazzy tunes +duets.

These kids are amazing (ages 10, 10 and 9, respectively) and I'm pretty proud of them.

Come one, come all--it's guaranteed entertainment! "

When: Sunday, August 19th @ 5 pm - 6:30 pm

Where: Sherman Clay piano store, 647 Mission St (between 2nd and 3rd, close to Montgomery BART Station)

Reception to follow.  Free.  Donations welcome ($5 - $10 suggested).

http://www.facebook.com/events/402212269837392/

This is what makes the Free Farm so special in my mind is the community of beautiful stars shining in their unique way and spreading the light and love around them.

Last Saturday we hosted 23 visitors from around the country that were part of the bicycle tour for the American Community Garden Association conference being held here in San Francisco. I was part of the team that made lunch for everyone and I lead them all on a 30 minute tour. They were all such a great group of people, almost all gardeners and many involved in wonderful projects themselves. When they left, I felt they got something out of the tour and they seemed very happy with the visit.

Here is a photo of one my favorite things we grow at the Free Farm, pepino dulce (Solanum muricatum). We harvested a bunch on Saturday and brought them to the Free Farm Stand on Sunday:

The pepino are the small fruit with purple stripes and tastes like a cross between melon and cucumber.

The Free Farm Plants Inspiration at Outside Lands

Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival took place in Golden Gate Park August 10-12 to a sold-out crowd of 195,000 people.

With a line-up including bands like the Foo Fighters, Neil Young, and Metallica, there was something for every musical taste. And for the times in-between sets, there were many attractions scattered throughout the park. 

One attraction, Eco Lands, invited The Free Farm to participate in their Urban Gardening section and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to get people excited about urban farming.

Little Pots with Big Impact

Our project was showing people how to make origami pots out of newspaper and plant vegetable seeds in them. They could either take the pots home or leave them with us to plant at The Free Farm. 

Erk (one of our fantastic volunteers) waiting to show people how to fold. He practiced at home until he could fold like nobody's business.

Here are the instructions on how to fold the pots. They are very easy to make and are a great way to use up all those old Examiners.

People really seemed to enjoy getting their hands dirty.

We had several different seeds to choose from so folks could plant what they liked best. These girls are planting kale.

K (another amazing volunteer) showing someone how to fold a pot.

The beer in his hand may have made the folding challenging but he was determined to make a pot. As K said: "I think it changed his life." 

Our involved, interactive project gave people a chance to take a pause from all the  high energy in the crowds and really, isn't farming all about the slow process anyway?  These two are interested in volunteering at The Free Farm.  We hope to see them soon.

It was great to exchange stories about urban farming. The woman on the right was visiting from Alaska and wants to pursue urban gardening there. Maybe she'll use newspaper origami pots for her seedlings.

It was fun to see the surprise on people's faces when they'd open up the newspaper  and it was transformed into a pot.

Zero Waste, Maximum Magic

In the true spirit of Eco Lands, not only did we not create any waste with our project but we also managed to up-cycle materials that were otherwise headed for the waste stream. Old t-shirts and coffee sacks were used to make the paper we hand printed with the history and contact info for The Free Farm.

Thank you to our many volunteers who committed their energy to create a magical Free Farm experience at Outside Lands – the photos here give just a glimpse of the fun and community building that happened over the weekend. 

And of course, anyone can get the full Free Farm experience by joining us on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM and the first Sunday of the month from 10:00 AM to noon at Eddy and Gough! Click "Get Involved" in the main menu above to learn more.  

Land and Liberty

Last Saturday we had planned a special event and the idea was to work with some employees from Kaiser Permanente who is giving us a small grant to buy seeds and supplies for the farm. Just before 9am Supervisor Christina Olague walked in our gate as we arranged she came to speak at our event. She seemed to be a nice person and we spoke looking out over the hillside planted with pollinators and habitat plants. I explained that we saw ourselves as a resurrection of the church that burnt down years ago. That we felt that the farm was a sacred space and that feeding our spiritual selves was as important as growing food and giving it to people in need. I saw that she really perked up when I mentioned that and that she could relate to what I was saying. I also mentioned that bees and the birds were part of our congregation as well as the many people that come by and that when we have to move they will too.

 I was the first person to speak and I just welcomed our small gathering to the Free Farm (there were mostly free farm volunteers, I didn't see any Kaiser employees, and Pam from St. Paulus Church was there). I mainly told a little about our history and mentioned the fact that we have grown over 7,000 pounds of produce since we began. Then I introduced Supervisor Olague and I pointed out that she was a supporter of urban agriculture and was one of the first members of the Board of Supervisors to support the recently passed new urban agriculture legislation to create a sort of Department of Urban Agriculture in San Francisco. The supervisor mainly spoke of her support for projects like ours, Hayes Valley Farm, Alemany Farm, and the Kezar Gardens at the HANC Recycling Center. She said that she wanted to see if there could be a way to have more permanent spaces available for agriculture projects in the city. Later in the day she tweeted " Urban Ag is an exciting movement in SF - visited Free Farm at Eddy and Gough today-committed to finding permanent spaces" The last person to speak was Steve from Kaiser Permanente, who shared with us that he used to be a Forrest Ranger and is a gardener. He explained that what Kaiser wants to do is make it easy for people to have good health, So they see having gardens as making it easy, having open space as making it easy, having access to fresh vegetables and fruits makes it easy. That is why they are supporting projects like ours. He gave us a framed certificate that I spaced out on reading, but I guess it officially states that they like us and support our work. Hooray!

The ominous black cloud of doubt did hang over us though, doubt that we can stay on the land for more than two or three years. Personally I am always just trying to go with the flow and believe that the divine powers that be will take care of us. We just need to keep serving and spread the love.

Now I want to talk about urban land and the need to have what Supervisor Olague said as more permanent places available for urban agriculture. First of all, I think what is needed is both more permanent open space and urban farmland. I think there should be a halt in development in the city and that we try to reuse any buildings first, especially unused buildings, before we tear down or build more new buildings.

 I got this inspiring email below the other day: Hi Free Farm,

Thank you for all the hard work that goes into creating and maintaining one of San Francisco's brightest spaces. We in the Space TranSFormers are very disturbed by the possibility of your eviction and are starting to take some action to inspire all of San Francisco to stand up for keeping your educational, food-bearing, green space just where it is. We understand the temporary use agreement of your space. We also think it is therefore up to the people of San Francisco to stand up and say: "We want to keep our green spaces. We want more permaculture in the city. We want the Free Farm to stay right where it is." Anyway, we love you all.

To start building some momentum to retain the Free Farm, along with Haye's Valley Farm and the HANC community garden and native plant nursery, we are inviting people to a gathering in Golden Gate Park September 14th through 16th: the Human Be In (g) 2012 ! We invite people to come together, teach a workshop, share a skill, play music, make art, cook a meal, and simply be. Through this, we hope to lay the groundwork for an edible forest garden in the city, similar to Seattle's Beacon Hill Forest Garden, the first public food forest in the nation.

Holy Shit!

Carmen who has been writing our blogs forever has not been able to come to the Free Farm on Saturdays and so there hasn't been her wonderful updates here in a while. I myself get so busy when I am at the farm, it's hard for me take photos when I am there nor report on all the amazing work going down these days. We are at the peak of summer abundance and the amount of food we have harvested has been unreal and the flowers are off the hook.  Besides that we get the most beautiful volunteers and visitors dropping in at the farm and I feel so grateful for the flow...the flow  of people power streaming through the farm gate. That is what it makes it possible to grow over 7,000 pounds of vegetables since 2010 and to give them to people in need.

One thing that was especially beautiful on Saturday was that it was Joyce's birthday. She is our official greeter at the gate and she makes everyone happy with humor and warmth. She in my opinion is the star in the movie about the Free Farm to the right on the sidebar. What was so special is that Christina brought a delicious vegan chocolate cake she baked and we all sang Happy Birthday. It really felt like the Free Farm was a family affair.

As an urban farmer I love free horse manure for making compost to feed our soil. As you might know I have been trying for months to organize a trip to the stables to get us a big load of it for the farm. It finally happened a week ago thanks to Sander who drove a rented 12ft stake bed truck to the Oakland stables and had it filled by tractor. When he came back three or four of us unloaded it for a number of hours and it was probably the most amount of horse poop I have ever shoveled (Pancho figured it was 4,000lbs of poop). Now let the growing really begin!

Below are a few pictures of some recent activity at the Free Farm. It doesn't come close to sharing all the fantastic work going on there and I highly recommend dropping by sometime and joining in on the fun...there are activities for all skill levels...from lots of grunt work to work up a sweat to planting seeds in the greenhouse. We will also train you if you want to learn farming/gardening so you can take on more responsibilities (that is what we are missing most these days is workday leaders).

Recently we got a small garden grant from Kaiser who is a health care company who is a  leader in promoting healthy diet and gardening. They gave us funds to buy seeds and supplies and we are going to be having a special work this Saturday August 4th with employees from Kaiser. We will be planting lots of starts not only for our farm and Alemany Farm, but also to give away to individual gardeners and other gardens. The event will begin early at 9am with a couple of speakers and also Supervisor Olague who is a big supporter of urban agriculture will be there. We would love to have a lot of people attend this special workday to show  support for the work we are doing, since at some point down the line (maybe 2 to 3 years) we may have to find a new home which is going to be a challenge to say the least.

manure love

our bulletin board 

meditating in the morning before the workday

the container garden

the farm in it's glory

new trellis for our climbing trombone squash

trellis building crew

preparing new bed for carrots and squash

 

 

 

some of the plenty we harvested

these folks from a Baptist church

 dropped in from Waco, Texas to help out

Also, check out our blog at http://freefarmstand.org/ to read and see where some of the Free Farm produce goes to in the Mission.

Know your soil

Public health message: lead hazards in urban farming

According to SF Department of Public Health (DPH) Children’s Environmental Health Promotion Program, one of the major sources of lead exposure to children in SF is bare soil in gardens with lead contamination from house paint or previous use of leaded gasoline. Though lead has been banned in house paint since 1979 and in auto fuel since 1996, lead does not break down over time, but remains in the environment. Most urban gardens in SF are located near residential buildings, of which more than 90% have at one time been covered with lead-based paint. Because safe work practices disturbing paint on building exteriors were not required until 1998, migration of lead paint dust into the soil was common.

(A few months ago, the apartment buildings adjacent to The Free Farm were painted. It’s good to know standards exist to prevent lead paint migration, including requirement that property owner or contractor post “Lead Work in Progress” sign or provide written notice to adjacent neighbors; see http://www.sfdbi.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/dbi/key_information/workpracticesleadbasedpaint.pdf.)

While gardening, we can get lead into our body from our hands contaminated with lead soil, eating lead-contaminated soil or paint dust on unwashed produce, or eating produce that has lead uptake. Lead toxicity can cause serious health problems: impair brain development, damage the nervous system, cause iron deficiency/anemia, interfere with calcium uptake, harm kidneys and reproductive health (fetus at risk because lead easily crosses placenta).

At workshop host site Garden For the Environment (http://www.gardenfortheenvironment.org/), Janet collects soil samples for lead testing, while her DPH colleagues Joe and Karen look on. DPH recommends getting soil analysis done by a local company like Micro Analytical Laboratories, Inc., 5900 Hollis St., Suite M, Emeryville, CA 94608, 510-653-0824, http://www.labmicro.com/.  SF residents can get a special rate of $25 if they note “SFDPH Partner” on the documentation sent to this lab with the samples, and if the lab does not have to explain the results; instead, for lab results interpretation, call SF DPH at 415-252-3956. (DPH conducted lead testing for Alemany Farm http://thefreefarm.blogspot.com/2012/04/do-you-know-way-to-alemany.html.)

Children are at most risk because of their still developing brains and bodies. Because daily contact with 80 ppm lead in soil can raise a child’s blood lead level by one unit, 80 ppm is the precautionary standard in risk assessment (i.e., soils with lead levels greater than 80 ppm should not be used for gardening unless remediated).

SFGTV Channel 26 films workshop participant washing hands after gardening.

DPH recommends the following best practices for reducing lead exposure from gardening: practice good personal hygiene (wear gloves while gardening, wash hands frequently, wash produce well before consuming), garden on low-leaded soil (< 80 ppm) when possible, and prevent further soil contamination by looking for surrounding risks. Other best practices include amending soil with organic matter (clean compost) and maintaining neutral pH (add limestone if soil is too acidic). More information at http://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/EHSdocs/ehsCEHPdocs/LeadHazardUrbanGardening.pdf.

Special K

Here’s a special shout-out to K, who has been opening up The Free Farm and taking these great photos for this blog while Tree and I have been absent. These photos are all worthy picks for plant porn of the week :-)

K reported that 4 volunteers showed up at The Free Farm on July 4th holiday! And more came out to volunteer yesterday for the huge summer harvest.  Thanks for all that you do :-)

K with sunflowers

Hannah and Alen

Carrots and collard greens

Dan and tower of killer kale

Strawberries, cucumbers and one tomato

Carrots and summer squash

Potatoes

Lunch by Hannah, zucchini bread and bean salad by K, flowers from Damon

What's the big idea: Occupy as spectator sport?

After being occupied in a classroom on Saturday, 9-5 (sadly missing The Free Farm and Fillmore Jazz Fest), classmate Joy (http://thefreefarm.blogspot.com/2011/04/refresh-at-free-farm.html) and I headed over to the opening of Occupy Bay Area exhibit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (http://www.ybca.org/occupy-bay-area). We bumped into Kevin aka “I am the 99%"
(http://thefreefarm.blogspot.com/2011/10/we-are-99.html) and his friend Scott, a self-described “interdisciplinary visual artist” who teaches Socially Engaged Art at UC Berkeley; check out http://www.scotttsuchitani.com/!

Free official poster

Does Occupy truly represent 99%?

Art should be thought-provoking, and everyone was buzzing about these free “unofficial” Occupy flyers at http://www.occupywhiteness.org/!

Public Service Announcements

Tues., July 10, 2012, 4 pm Beach Chalet Appeal Hearing
City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Legislative Chamber, Rm 250, SF 94102
SF Ocean Edge urges the public to attend this hearing: tell the SF Board of Supervisors not to replace grass soccer fields that support birds and wildlife with artificial turf and 60-foot-tall light towers! http://home.earthlink.net/~sfoceanedge/ (Agenda item 40 at http://www.sfbos.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/bdsupvrs/bosagendas/agendas/2012/BAG071012.pdf)

Wed., July 11, 2012, 1:30-3:30 pm SF Food Security Task Force
City Hall - 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Rm. 278, SF 94102 http://www.sfdph.org/dph/files/mtgsGrps/#foodsecurity

Wed., July 11, 2012, 7 pm Getting the most from your small space food garden
Ortega Branch Library, 3223 Ortega St., SF
Pam Peirce will be giving a power point lecture, followed by a question and answer session http://www.sfpl.org/index.php?pg=1010816201

Mon., July 16, 2012, 7-9 pm SF Sustainable City Plan
Gazebo Room, CPMC Davies Campus, Castro Street between Duboce & 14th Sts., SF
TransitionSF will host a panel discussion led by Paul A. Lord, Jr. and including Debra Walker, Scott Edmonson, and Tom Radulovich. They have deep experience in the SF legislative process and are currently involved in projects that further local resilience and sustainability. During the panel, we will revisit the SF Sustainability City plan (http://www.sustainable-city.org/) and discuss ways that some of the numerous recommendations in this plan could be assisted with legislative initiatives.
- Paul A. Lord, Jr.: Managing Director, Greenlight Plan (http://www.greenlightplan.com/), retired SF city planner (1984-2012), Planning Department liaison to the Board of Supervisors and Legislative Coordinator (1998-2001), Recent work includes community planning for the Western SoMa and Japantown neighborhoods
- Debra Walker: Artist, Political Director at California Democratic Party, Women's Caucus, Adjunct Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies, Board member at San Francisco Planning and Urban Research (SPUR)
- Scott Edmonson: Principal/ Founder of AICP, Member of APA Sustainable Places Initiative's Corresponding Committee, Advisor to SF Sustainability Plan (1996)
- Tom Radulovich, Executive Director of Livable City (http://livablecity.org/), urban environmental activist, has served as an elected director of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District since 1996
http://www.transitionsf.org/Home/dashboard 

Tues., July 17, 2012, 11-11:30 am Honeybees with Tim Muhrlin
Joe DiMaggio Playground Clubhouse, 2000 Mason St., SF
Bees are the best! Tim Muhrlin leads a program for the very young on all the things that keep bees busy. For ages 3-5. http://www.sfpl.org/index.php?pg=1010761801

Tues., July 17, 2012, 2-2:30 pm Honeybees with Tim Muhrlin
Parkside Branch Library, 1200 Taraval St., SF Tim Muhrlin teaches about honeybees, hives, pollination and more. Ages 5 and up. http://www.sfpl.org/index.php?pg=1010738201